What is the Difference between Sales and Marketing?

Sales and marketing are two business functions within an organization – they both impact lead generation and revenue. There is not a big gap between sales and marketing, but there is difference between sales and marketing. Every company hires both sales and marketing professionals. Marketing includes increasing the awareness about your product and services with the intention of growing business. Sales refer to all activities that lead to the selling of goods and services. There are various mediums of marketing such as outdoor, print, radio, tv, etc. All these mediums are used to advertise the product and services. There are different methods are used to do the marketing of B2B and B2C products.

Difference Between Sales and Marketing

The aim of sales and marketing both is to grow the business of the company. Although the approach differs from each other. In marketing, a creative approach is adopted for the brand building which is done for increasing the business of the company. In sales, a sales professional directly contacts the customer to close the deal. Here is the customer decision very much influenced by brand-building exercise of that company. Although many times, sales and marketing professionals have to co-ordinate with each other. A sales professional follows guidelines provided by marketing professionals. The difference between sales and marketing is summarized here.
Sales refer to directly approaching your target customers while marketing is telling about your product and services by using different mediums.
Sales is when you’re face-to-face with a customer, convincing a person to buy your product while Marketing is the collection of decisions you make about the market that leads to successful sales.
Marketing is the planning part of sales. Marketing chooses the products to make, identifies who to sell to, what customers want, and who competitors are. Then, marketing figures out how to distinguish the product from the competition by choosing where the product is sold, it’s price, packaging, advertising messages, and where the ads run. This is called “positioning” the product.
Some of the Marketing Tools are – Conversion Rate Optimization, Search engine optimization (SEO) tool, Project management tool, Data reporting software, and Content creation tool. Sales Tools are – Meetings app, Documents tool, Invoicing software, Email management tool, Inventory and order management software.

How Marketing Impacts Sales?

Marketing impacts sales in various ways. How you market your product also impacts your sales process. You must have heard that in some companies – sales automatically happen. Few criteria are related to this factor such as marketing, product services, and quality. Marketing informs and attracts leads and prospects to your company and product or service.
Salespeople are responsible for managing relationships with potential clients (prospects) and providing a solution for prospects that eventually leads to a sale. Marketers use market research and analysis to understand the interests of potential customers. Marketing departments are responsible for running campaigns to attract people to the business’ brand, product, or service.
Increased marketing activity can create the perception of greater sales coverage. Marketing can identify shifts in buying behavior.